


Hunger of the Grave

by plutonianshores



Category: Goblin Market - Christina Rossetti
Genre: Comes Back Wrong, F/F, Gen, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 12:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5048788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutonianshores/pseuds/plutonianshores
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lizzie might have thought twice about praying for her sister's return, had she known what would result.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunger of the Grave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selden/gifts).



> Title from [a poem by James Thomson](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174673).

Laura came back.

Lizzie had presumed her dead, had already begun to mourn her loss, but Laura came back through the door one morning and let Lizzie dab the scarlet juice from the corners of her mouth. (It looked like blood, she thought, like Laura had buried her teeth in the neck of some hapless animal and bitten down.)

The juice never quite came off, although a bit of it transferred to Lizzie when she kissed her sister’s cheek and told her to come to breakfast.

“I’m not hungry,” Laura said when Lizzie noticed she’d barely touched her plate, with the dullness of a lie in her eyes. Lizzie could see the hunger gnawing at her, and she knew full well that the only foods which could sate it were squirreled away by the goblin men.

 

Laura came back, but not entirely. When she curled up in Lizzie’s bed that night ( _It’s cold_ , she’d said, and Lizzie could never say no to her), her skin burned Lizzie’s like ice. She felt wrong in some other way as well, and it took Lizzie half the night to figure it out—her chest didn’t move with her breath. In fact, she didn’t seem to be breathing at all.

 

Laura came back, and every morning, she sat by the window and watched the workers pass by on their way to the mill. She licked her lips, and her eyes gleamed. Lizzie took to eating her breakfast in front of the door, trying to tell herself that her sister hungered only for the goblins’ fruit, but not quite able to convince herself.

 

Laura came back, but her eyes drifted to the glen when she thought Lizzie wasn’t looking. Hunger held her face taut, and hung on the edges of her every word. Lizzie held her tight at night, for fear that she would flee, and one night, she did.

 

Laura left, and Lizzie went after. She made her way down into the valley, through the trees, following the sound of the goblins’ strange, sad songs. And Laura was there, crouched by the water, blood-red juice spread across her lips.

“Sister, you must come home.”

Laura grinned, her teeth painted scarlet. “Sister, you should stay. What does the mortal world hold for us? Wedded and bedded and wrung out by 30, and kept apart from each other. Wouldn’t you rather be together?”

“I’d rather not sacrifice my soul.”

Her laugh fell through the air like an axe through a tree. “Not even to stay with me? Mine is long gone, you know. It would be so easy.”

“I’ve seen your hunger,” Lizzie whispered. “Who would willingly enter into that?”

“What has the world given you that you need to defend it? Come, sister. Take a bite.”

Lizzie leaned forward, holding her breath on the edge of the abyss. Then she took the fruit from Laura’s fingers and bit down. The bittersweet juice filled her mouth, sticking to her lips and coating her teeth. Laura kissed her, lips coming away red. Lizzie laughed, then gasped as a horrid pain spiked through her.

“Oh, I think I’m dying!”

“You are. But it won’t stick.” Laura grinned. “And it will only last a moment, sister dear.”

Whether it lasted only a moment as Laura had said, or whether Laura’s kiss swept Lizzie away from the pain, Lizzie didn’t know. When Laura pulled away, the sharp edges had faded to a gentle hum throughout her body, the feeling of something new. A hunger, filling her.

Laura’s teeth dripped red, and Lizzie realized hers must look the same—she could feel the juice coating her mouth. Her newfound hunger gnawed at her gut, and she longed for the taste of something different.

“You’d like to eat, wouldn’t you?” Laura took her hand. “I would as well.”

The hunger chewing at her gut took Lizzie’s breath away. “Is this the state I kept you in?”

She smiled. “You didn’t know. And now we may dine together. Won’t that be lovely, Lizzie?”

Even this far from the village, Laura could smell their neighbors. They were naught but so much blood, running through a tangle of veins. “Yes, it will.”


End file.
